Urban Share Community Gardening Project

2,224 pounds of produce harvested!

2010-10-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

The five bags of tomatoes above were harvested at the Bethlehem Lutheran garden in West Oakland. This last season they harvested more than 200 pounds of produce! Only about 500 square feet, this garden was able to provide a lot of free food on unused church land.

The Free Farm in San Francisco, which is about 1/3 of an acre and sits on the former site of St. Paulus Lutheran Church has harvested 2,124 pounds since February.

In these hard economic times, transforming unused church land into free food is a low cost way that congregations can respond to the real needs of its congregants and the community around it. Let us know if your church gets inspired to grow produce on your unused space or if we can help you start a farm where you live.

We believe that churches really can address hunger issues. The goal of our free farms was to prove that it doesn't have to cost a lot of money to feed people. We hope our project has inspired you!

Free Farm Harvests 1045 Pounds!

2010-07-31T21:32:00.001-07:00

Amount of produce harvested and given a way at the free farm since February: 1045 pounds

In the News: Mission Local

2010-07-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

Feeding the Mission, in the Western Addition
Your reporter squealed like a little girl when she realized she had actually found a potato.

By: Heather Smith | July 8, 2010

It starts with a Lutheran Church on fire. St. Paulus at Eddy and Gough burned to the ground in 1995 and has remained a vacant lot ever since. Then, this year, an improbable alliance came together. Case Garver, a 22-year-old Lutheran Volunteer Corps member from Ohio, and Megan Rohrer, a local pastor, were negotiating with local churches to open up unused property in the city for farming.

It was more than just a quaint idea — Rohrer is director of Welcome, an organization that deals directly with the poor, and food banks in San Francisco continue to be stretched to their limit. Rohrer secured permission for the St. Paulus lot. Then came the tricky part.

“Neither of us knew anything about gardening,” says Garver. “Then we found Tree.”

Tree knew how to garden. A Mission resident whose history stretched back decades, Tree had been growing and harvesting food from gardens mostly in the neighborhood, cultivating a group of local gardens and distributing the bounty to a variety of groups. In 2008 he began the Free Farm Stand at Parque Niños Unidos at 23rd and Treat. “People trust him,” says Lauren Anderson, an artist and gardener who runs the foraging nonprofit Produce to the People. “Which means a lot. It’s not easy to invite someone into your backyard, even if it’s just to pick fruit.”

Tree agreed to help run the farm with Anderson and some other nonprofit groups, with the idea that some of the produce would go to the Free Farm Stand in the Mission. The Lutheran synod that owns the church site agreed to cover the water and electrical bills. And so the farming began.

Your average burned-out foundation is not necessarily ideal farmland. The site was sunny, and as Garver puts it, the soil was equal parts sand, KFC buckets, Häagen-Dazs containers and used syringes. When asked if the crew had to use special safety gloves to clear out the soil, Garver deadpans, “It depends on how you define ‛special.’ Or ‛safe.’”

“We did have gloves,” he adds.

“There are so many different urban agriculture groups,” says Anderson. “They all believe in slightly different things: Teaching people how to garden. Getting people community garden plots. Greening the city. Working with youth. Our priority [was] getting food out of the ground and to the low-income people who needed it. The secret was manure. Lots and lots of manure.”

Planting in the basement of a burned-out building turned out to have its advantages — the plants were sheltered from San Francisco’s gale-force winds by the remaining walls. The terrible soil is producing more food than anyone expected.The first harvest at the plot they named The Free Farm — 5.5 pounds of produce — came out of the garden on April 11, just a little over three months after work began. A second mini-stand was established outside and began passing out food to residents of the immediate neighborhood. By the end of June, the free farmers had harvested 784 pounds of produce in six months, the most of any garden in the network supplying the Free Farm Stand.

On a Wednesday afternoon, a volunteer sits outside the farm behind two galvanized tubs of gargantuan, prehistoric-looking collard greens, offering them to slightly confused passersby. The quirks of the landscape are still being discovered — carrots have been challenging, collards and cabbage have done astonishingly well. There is fortune in this: Collards have been one of the most popular crops in both neighborhoods. Attempts to push kale have been met by resistance.

Inside, volunteers are elbow-deep in the dirt, feeling around for the first crop of potatoes. They range from a very enthusiastic visitor from southern Japan to Steve Pulliam, a recent transplant from Atlanta who found the place while walking his dog. When he began, he had no gardening experience. Five months later he is speaking confidently about duck droppings.

“I wanted to be outside. In the sunshine. Not around kids,” says Sarah Hale, a schoolteacher. “So much has happened this year: Haiti, the Gulf. I wanted to do something where I knew that I was doing good. Something small, and effective.”

Anderson, meanwhile, admits to aspirations beyond the small. “This is a terrible, terrible analogy,” she says, jokingly. “But we’re trying to decide if we want to turn this into a franchise.”

Online Silent Auction

2010-06-29T22:08:00.001-07:00

An online silent auction has been created for the upcoming fundraiser. New items will be added up until July 24th, so check back regularly.

View the auction here.

More than 783.57 pounds of food grown!

2010-06-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged about our gardens in a while because I've been so busy. But, I wanted to send an update that 783.57 pounds of free produce have been given away from the Free Farm. Bethlehem Lutheran has also been enjoying harvests lately.

Beyond the food, we've also worked with more than 566 volunteers in the garden this year.

I'm someone who is usually moved more by personal stories than numbers, but these numbers are very impressive.

Thanks to all the great volunteers and leaders at the Free Farm!

First Garden Workday with Congregation Emanu El

2010-06-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Today at the Free Farm members and friends of Congregation Emanu El as well as other local temples across the San Francisco Bay Area joined us for their first garden workday. This marks the first Sunday that members of Congregation Emanu El and other temples will join us for the first Sunday of each month to work with us at the garden.

Today we divided up into small groups so that we could tackle several different projects we've been wanting to get to. Several people teamed up to put fresh mulch down along the path of our herb labyrinth so that it will be soft for those who walk upon it, especially those with tender knees. Others weeded around the strawberries and sunflowers and on the concrete area where we are getting ready to build a bathroom and other structures. We covered up a rocky area with soft mulch, extending our tree stump sitting area so that we can have a larger circle during work day lunch time and other activities. The area set aside for growing pumpkins was cleared from dried plants and covered with compost; soon it will be ready to be planted! Tomatoes were transplanted and placed in the green house. And, of course a little watering to keep the plants happy under the warm sun today brought. We are looking forward to working with the lovely folks of Emanu El again next month!

If you are interested in joining us for our next Sunday workday please come by on July 4 from 10am-12pm. We look forward to meeting you!

Join Us and Support Welcome

2010-04-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

Join us for
A Free Farm Afternoon
Gough & Eddy
in San Francisco
May 22, 2010
2:30-4:30

3:30 Talk by Novella Carpenter, Author of Farm City

Music Provided by: Lia Rose

Food Donated by: farm:table, Mama's on Washington Square, Greens, Maggie Mudd, and Bi Rite Market.

A family friendly afternoon at the Free Farm. Food from Mama's on Washington Square, Green's Restaurant and many more. Wine tasting. Coffee from Farm Table Cafe. Carla's kid's corner. Music and Poetry. A fun and very special afternoon.

A special talk by Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, a book about her first year running Ghost Town Farm in Oakland. Novella Carpenter will speak at 3:30 pm. ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com

Join us and support WELCOME. We provide a communal response to poverty with a simple philosophy of providing food, education and counseling to the communities we serve.

tickets $75, $50, $25. Pay what you can afford. Consider buying two tickets to sponsor one of our community members.

Our Organization:
When Welcome was founded in 1996, our initial mission was to work with the homeless in San Francisco's Polk Gulch District. In 2008, our work resulted in over 155 people moving indoors. We continue to work with the same low income individuals to help them learn the skills they need to remain indoors, to improve their quality of life and to become self-sustaining individuals through meals, one-on-one support and creative community projects that address the health needs of those living in poverty.

Location:
At the Free Farm at the corner of Gough & Eddy in San Francisco

The Free Farm:
Is a farm that will grow 12,000 pounds of food that will be distributed for free to members of the community. You can find information about the free farm at thefreefarm.org

Order your tickets now: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/107417

Project Leadership

2010-04-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

Rev. Megan Rohrer, Executive Director
Vicar Pete Feltmen, Volunteer and Donation Coordinator

The Free Farm - Eddy and Gough San Francisco
Tree, Free Farm Stand- Garden Planning Team
Lauren Andersen, Produce to the People - Garden Planning Team
Joshua "Griff" Griffin, Episcopal Diocese of California - Garden Planning Team
Page Chamberlain, Standford Glean - Garden Planning Team
Carling - Garden Planning Team
Heidi - Garden Planning Team
Shandra - Garden Planning Team
Pancho - Garden Planning Team
Tamara Loewenstein - Curator and Community Arts Coordinator
Leanne C. Miller - Muralist

St. Mark's Lutheran - 1111 O'farrell in San Francisco
Lauren Andersen, Produce to the People - Garden Planning Team
Megan , St. Mark's Lutheran - Garden Planning Team
Mary, St. Mark's Lutheran - Garden Planning Team
Rose, Martin Luther Towers - Garden Planning Team

Faithful Fools Rooftop Garden - 234 Hyde in San Francisco
Octavio - Garden Planning Team

Bethlehem Lutheran - West Oakland
Karleen - Urban Farming - Garden Planning Team
Tamara Loewenstein - Curator and Community Arts Coordinator
Bianca Muller - Muralist

Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran - Berkeley
Rev. Katie Hines-Shaw - Garden Planning Team

Past leaders:
Case Garver - Program Assistant (September 2009 - April 2010)

In the News

2010-04-26T18:39:00.001-07:00

Check out this great story about the Free Farm from KQED's Bay Area Bites Blog.

excerpt:

Or, what about starting from the very beginning, and growing more food from scratch right here in the city? Even in cities as highly populated as San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, a surprisingly amount of arable land is still available. Just look at the Free Farm, which was started on a vacant lot at Gough and Eddy Streets in January of this year.

Pastor Megan Rohrer, a young Lutheran pastor who works with a variety of homeless communities around the city as the executive director of Welcome Ministry, wanted to expand the work she was doing, going from feeding the hungry of San Francisco to growing food for those same communities. The St. Paulus Lutheran church was willing to offer an empty lot it owned to her and a dedicated community of volunteers to make a garden.

Meanwhile Tree, a longtime food-justice activist and community gardener as well as the founder of the Mission's popular Free Farmstand, was looking for a place to grow more local food to supply the farmstand. Once Megan's church connections met Tree's gardening expertise, the Free Farm was born. With grants from the Mesa Foundation along with several local Episcopal and Lutheran churches, plus a whole lot of wheelbarrow-pushing volunteer labor, the weedy lot has undergone an astonishing transformation.

What was once a trash-strewn, needle-littered eyesore that neighbors called "The Pit" is now a welcoming, mural-lined space full of neatly mounded raised beds planted with salad mix, potatoes, beans, broccoli and lettuce. Bricks salvaged from the St. Paulus church (which stood on the space before burning down in 1995) now form strawberry beds on the hillside and a winding spiral bed planted with flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Cold frames and a newly built greenhouse are filled with trays of tiny seedlings, everything from kale to tomatoes to marigolds started from seeds donated by church communities across the country. Bright garden-themed murals by local artist Leanne C. Miller cover the concrete wall on the west side, and there are plans to bring more artists and sculptors into the garden to create site-specific works.

Volunteers get down and dirty every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am to 2pm, building infrastructure, hauling mulch, manure and compost, planting seedlings, waterings, and more. A volunteer-made vegan lunch, often featuring produce harvested from the garden, is shared by all. Volunteers will also share in the harvest, with excess supplying the Free Farmstand (Rohrer hopes to establish another neighborhood Free Farmstand on the site) as well as providing fresh local produce for twice-weekly homeless dinners organized by Welcome. (For more information on Welcome's additional garden projects around the Bay Area, go to Urban Share.)

Read the whole article and leave comments about the article at: KQED's Bay Area Bites Blog

Succulent Fence - West Oakland

2010-04-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

This morning, at Bethlehem Lutheran I attached some potato and onion sacks to the fence to serve as a barrier to keep the soil inside the garden. In order to make it prettier, I also planted some succulents along the fence. Their roots will not only hold the soil in place, but it also grow strong with out much water.

Succulents (plants with a waxy coating on their leaves - like aloe) are a great addition to California gardens, because they can cover large spaces and conserve valuable water resources. Mixing lots of different types of succulents next to each other can also make a very beautiful look and provide rich textures. I also think that the green and purple of the succulents look really beautiful next to the orange of the potato sacks.

Succulents are very forgiving, so they're great for inexperienced gardeners. You can transplant them by breaking off a branch/stem and simply sticking it in some soil. Just be careful not to over water them. You'll know if this is happening because they will start to turn brown.

Raised Beds Completed at St. Mark's Garden

2010-04-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

Today we finished building 3 more raised beds (for a total of 5), a planting table and one storage bench. Next will will be:

covering the sand that covers the space with fine wood chips that are accessible for wheelchairs and walkers
building a few more storage benches for people to sit on and to store tools
filling the raised beds with a mixture of soil, compost and horse manure
install the drip system and timer
start planting!!

We'll also be adding some fruit trees to our garden as well. We know we have a lemon tree that we'll be putting in.

Today's workday at the Free Farm

2010-04-24T16:39:00.001-07:00

Today at the Free Farm, we started putting some succulents in containers on top of the concrete structures near the sidewalks.

Each week, we have a group of volunteers who take the baby seedlings and put them into individual seedling trays so their roots can get strong enough to get planted in beds. Here are a few of the people who help sort some seedlings this week.
Lauren and Case, built some shelves from pallets so that we could fit more seedling trays in the green house.
Here are some photos of today's harvest

Progress at Bethlehem Lutheran in West Oakland

2010-04-19T16:27:00.001-07:00

The first thing we did today is replace the wooden fence that was covered in ivy, rotten and falling over. We had to cut down part of the fence in order to get the two truckloads of soil into the space. Then last week, when there was a storm the make shift fence blew down and broke.
I was able to get two rolls of chain link fence from an individual in Oakland who had recently lost their job and was happy to get rid of it in exchange for $20.
Then, we set up the drip tape and the irrigation system that would handle the daily watering of our produce.
Then we planted some leeks (as seen above), onions, carrots, beets, green beans and lettuce. It was a very productive day and it felt good to see the garden really begin to take shape and get us one step closer to a harvest!

3rd Harvest at the Free Farm: 6 pds

2010-04-18T22:59:00.000-07:00

Today, 6 pounds of lettuce (6 1/2 pound lettuce heads 3 pounds lettuce mix) from the Free Farm was given away at the Free Farm Stand. When we start having more bountiful harvests, we'll be opening a stand at the Free Farm to give away produce and seedlings.

2 Raised Beds Finished at St. Mark's

2010-04-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

Today at St. Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco we finished two of the raised beds that will be at the site. This garden will primarily be tended by the residents at Martin Luther Towers, a senior living facility, so we want to make sure the garden could happen at a comfortable height and limit the amount of bending and squatting that would be needed. It has also been designed to be accessible for individuals in wheelchairs and using walkers.

The tall bed you see above is at a comfortable height for gardening while standing. The smaller bed will be pounded down in the sand and filled with dirt for people to garden while they are seated. Click here to see the garden plan for this site.

If you'd like to learn how we built this beds or just help at the St. Mark's garden, we hope you'd join us next Sunday (April 25th from 1-4pm) when we finish the rest of our beds.

Extra Bishop's Blessing

2010-04-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

After our garden blessing service today, Bishop Marc Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California and Bishop Mark Holmerud of the ELCA's Sierra Pacific Synod helped us plant some seedlings. In amongst the seeds that were donated to the Urban Share Community Gardening Project were some seeds called "the Bishop's Flower." It was perfect for them to plant. We're going to nurse these seedlings, then I'll bring some to the Bishops and plant some at our gardens.

And of course since the bishops travel a lot and may not be able to visit their flowers often, we'll take photos of them so they can watch them grow.

Blessing of the Free Farm - Ritual

2010-04-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

The text and photos below are from the blessing of the Free Farm. We've posted the information below in hopes that you will bless your own garden sites. Please feel free to use the service in whole or in parts. We planned our service by mapping out a route through the garden, you may want to do the same.

All Leaders were encouraged to add, substitute or subtract any words they desire or to offer their own blessing. Religious leaders were asked to dress casually in clothes suitable for gardening and to wear a sign of their faith - particularly those that had agricultural roots. For example, stoles are a sign of being yoked to God as an oxen is yoked to a plow. And bishops often have staffs used for shepherding.

Service of Blessing for the Free Farm

Apr 17, 2010

Gathering Song: Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell

Opening Words:

Welcome! Grace and peace to you. As we begin, you are invited to look at your surroundings here – Feel your feet in the dirt. Feel the wind on your face. We are standing on the remains of St. Paulus Lutheran, a church that fell victim to the destructive power of fire. While we typically stand aghast at the desolation that a fire can cause. Fires are also profound catalysts for new growth. Consider the Mountain Grey Gum tree (eucalyptus cypellocarpa) which has adapted to grow masses of fresh green shoots of leaves within days after a fire sweeps through. Fire is a natural element necessary to the harmony of nature. In the Christian tradition fire can also carry connotations purification. And now as we stand in the ashes and dirt of fire, we look around and see the budding of new plants. Hope springs eternal to the faithful and we look to this garden to be a sacred space that will provide nourishing food to those in need. This space will serve as a church without walls for the community providing a place for whole body health, education, worship, and food justice.

Song: Gather Us In vs 1,2,4

Prayer:

Spirit of grace and truth, we ask that you make your presence felt in this garden today and everyday. We ask that you make our hands and hearts both strong and humble as we work this ground. We ask that you provide the necessary balance of energy and rest for the gardeners. Inspire us, God, so that the words we speak here today may have a lasting effect on our lives and the lives of all that we connect with. Amen.

Blessings:

Gate

Spirit of grace and truth, bless this gate. May all that pass through it have the desire to do goodness and work towards justice. Place your angels on these fences and command them to dispel evil wherever it attempts to enter. May this gate speak “welcome” and “peace” to all that walk by.

All: God bless this garden and all of the life and potential that it represents.

Community Area

Participants walk to the community Area. Anyone interested in offering a blessing at this time is welcome. You may use your own blessing or the words printed below.

If no one speaks in this space we will observe a time a silence to remember the saints who have come before us, particularly the generation after generation of farmers that planted and collected seeds. The presider will end the time of silence by reading the words below.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless this community area. May it be a space of fellowship, trust, and communion. We ask that you open the hearts and minds of all that gather here, and that you would bless their hands for the work that needs to be accomplished.

All: God bless this garden and all of the life and potential that it represents.

Greenhouse

Participants walk to the greenhouse.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless this greenhouse. The earth is cool and dark, and far below, new life begins. May the soil in this greenhouse be blessed with fertility and abundance, with the heat of the sun, with the energy of the raw earth. May the soil be blessed as the womb of the land becomes full and fruitful to bring forth the garden anew.

All: God bless this garden and all the life and potential it represents.

Tool shed

Participants walk to the tool shed.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless this humble tool shed made from pallets. We give thanks for these tools that were bought, borrowed, donated or rescued from the dump. You are the God who turns swords to plowshares, help us to use these tools you have given us safely, with mindfulness and to remember to put them away neatly when we are done.

All: God bless this garden and all the life and potential it represents.

Labyrinth

Participants walk to the labyrinth.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless this labyrinth. Thank you for giving us times of stillness, peace, and meditation. Thank you for those blessed moments where your light can be seen briefly if not comprehended. Help us to find those moments in this labyrinth. Grace this place with your light so that it might inspire profound self-examination and reflection.

All: God bless this garden and all the life and potential it represents.

Strawberry terraces

Participants walk to the terraces.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless these strawberry terraces. May you help us to realize the juiciness rife with potassium that are strawberries. Help us to pause in our daily life and recognize what little wonders of creation strawberries are. If we could make communion wine from these strawberries we would be grateful for your ever present blessing on our lives.

All: God bless this garden and all the life and potential it represents.

Water Station

Participants walk to the raised beds.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless this water station. You who split the Red Seas, sprung water from rock in the desert, tamed the stormy waters and used water to name us your children, help us to be good stewards of this water that will be used to clean soiled hands, nurture plants and quench the thirst of those who toil.

All: God bless this garden and all the life and potential it represents.

Seedlings

Participants walk to the seedlings.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless these seedlings. May they grow into nourishing and healthy plants to sustain us in life. We thank you for the rain and the sun that is so graciously provided and we ask for the proper balance as these baby plants grow and mature.

All: God bless this garden and all of the life and potential that it represents.

Raised plant beds

Participants walk to the raised beds.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless these plant beds. May their growth be a reminder to us of the constant growth that we experience everyday. As God says in Genesis (1:11-12), "Let the land produce vegetation: seed- bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.”

All: God bless this garden and all the life and potential it represents.

Compost

Participants walk to the compost piles.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless this compost. May it give the plants the nutrients they need. As we encounter its smells, let them be a reminder to us about the order and chaos of life and death. For as it is written in Genesis (3:19), “by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

All: God bless this garden and all the life and potential it represents.

Murals

Participants walk to the murals.

Spirit of grace and truth, bless these murals. Thank you for the gift of art. Thank you for t he talent you have instilled in us. Thank you for our anxious moments of being where we can do nothing but mock you with our own creations. Thank you for being an untouchable creator. May these murals be signs of peace and justice to all that look upon them. May they be welcoming to all who need welcomed. May they be distracting to passers-by that they may become interested and volunteer. May they be inspiring to all the gardeners as they toil.

All: God bless this garden and all the life and potential it represents.

Commissioning:

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

All: And also with you.

Brothers and sisters: We have come together to commission this garden for the glory of God and building up of the body of Christ. From this day forward let it be a place for the gathering of the people of God, a place for proclaiming the Gospel through Word and Sacrament, a place for bringing life and hope to us and to this community.

Let us pray: Direct us, O Lord in all our doings with your most gracious favor and further us with your continual help, that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy name and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All: Amen

Peace to this garden.

All: And all who enter here.

( Psalm 122) “I was glad when they said to me “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” Now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity with itself; to which the tribes go up the tribes of the Lord, the assembly of Israel, to praise the name of the Lord. For there are the thrones of judgement, the thrones of the house of David.

(Psalm 122 cont.) Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls and quietness within your towers. For my brethren and companions' sake, I pray for your prosperity. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do you good.

All your works praise you, O Lord,

All: and your faithful servants bless you.

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, king of the universe. In the beginning your Spirit moved over the waters and you created heaven and earth. You have made water for us sign of rebirth and by it we share in the death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ. Pour out your Holy Spirit, so that new life may be given to all those who believe. To you, O god, be given praise and honor and worship through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever.

All: Amen

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, king of the universe. You have revealed your love for your creation in your Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. Inspired by him, we seek to hold fast to the truth and to know your purposes. Purify the hands of those who work here, and grant us grace to hear your love in all that is proclaimed from this garden.

All: Amen

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, king of the universe. The heavens and earth cannot contain you, yet you are willing to make your home in human hearts. We are the temple of your presence, and this garden is the house of your church. Accept us and this place to which we come to share with others the covenant you make with us, to praise your name, to receive your forgiveness, to hear your Word, and to be nourished by the body and blood of your Son. Be present always to guide and illumine your people. And now, O god, visit us with your mercy and blessing as we dedicate this garden to your glory and honor and to the service of all people in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

All: Amen

Closing Song: Canticle of Turning vs. 1,2,4

Benediction

Go in peace and tend the garden!

All: Thanks be to God

Save the date: May 22nd Fundraiser

2010-04-16T18:19:00.001-07:00

Order your tickets now: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/107417

A family friendly afternoon at the Free Farm. Food from Mama's on Washington Square, Green's Restaurant and many more. Wine tasting. Coffee from farm:table. Carla's kid's corner. Music and Poetry. A fun and very special afternoon.

A special talk by Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, a book about her first year running Ghost Town Farm in Oakland. Novella Carpenter will speak at 3:30 pm.

Join us and support Welcome. We provide a communal response to poverty with a simple philosophy of providing food, education and counseling to the communities we serve. Learn more at www. sfwelcome.org

tickets $75, $50, $25. Pay what you can afford, no one turned away for lack of funds. Consider buying two tickets to sponsor one of our community members.

Our Organization:
When Welcome was founded in 1996, our initial mission was to work with the homeless in San Francisco's Polk Gulch District. In 2008, our work resulted in over 155 people moving indoors. We continue to work with the same low income individuals to help them learn the skills they need to remain indoors, to improve their quality of life and to become self-sustaining individuals through meals, one-on-one support and creative community projects that address the health needs of those living in poverty.

Location:
At the Free Farm at the corner of Gough & Eddy in San Francisco

The Free Farm:
Is a farm that will grow 12,000 pounds of food that will be distributed for free to members of the community. You can find information about the free farm at thefreefarm.org

Order your tickets now.

Whole Health Activities Begin!

2010-04-16T16:45:00.001-07:00

Before the work day this past Wednesday we had our first whole body health activity at the Free Farm. Our free yoga gathering helped volunteers and members of the community start the day of with some good stretching.

We're looking for qualified individuals (trained folk or students who have some supervision) to lead free whole body health activities at the Free Farm. They could include, but will not be limited to:

Reiki
Tai Chi
meditation
support groups
acupuncture
skill share classes
self defense
poetry
singing/open mic
book clubs
insert the practice or hobby you use to relax or keep your body healthy

This is a great way for individuals to complete the hours they need in order to get certified or to give back to the community in a beautiful space. If you're interested, please contact megan@welcomeministry.org to learn more.

We'll keep a schedule of events, get the word out to encourage folk to come or make appointments for you - whatever you prefer. Leaders will be expected to open the gate (there is a numerical code), maintain a safe environment at the farm, make sure everyone leaves before they do, and make sure everyone who participates signs a waiver.

Get Connected

2010-04-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

This is what's going on with Urban Share this week.

Wednesday the 14th yoga at the Free Farm. We have 10 mats that can be used if you need one. First come, first serve. Yoga begins at 9am.
Then, Wednesday workday at the Free Farm from 10am - 2pm with a vegan lunch provided.
Saturday, the 17th the Free Farm is holding a blessing ceremony for the garden with Lutheran Bishop Mark Holmerud, Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus, clergy from the Free Farm and folks not-involved with the church.
Sunday, the 18th St. Mark's workday constructing raised beds together.

Rest assured there will be plenty of pictures of religious people in their funny clothes, early morning farm yoga, and St. Mark's progress.

Til then here are some photos of what it looks like to volunteer with Welcome at Urban Share gardening events.

Present Needs

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Urban Share has a list of needs to drive the projects we're involved in forward. In order to have our needs met we have to ask. So, here's asking. Please bear in mind that you can either provide the whole in-kind donation of the item we need, or parts helpful in constructing it, or money to be put towards it.
Free Farm:

Plastic for a green house
Green house shelving (you'll see from the pictures below that we really need it)
A shed for our tools (new or used as long as it's waterproof)
Lumber for a composting toilet
Wheelbarrows
Knowledgeable folks able to lead others in tasks that need completing.
Hand tools
Lots of Compost/Manure/Woodchips

Check out this great greenhouse that the Farm received as a donation!

Free Farm Harvest Helps Feed at Welcome Community Dinner

2010-04-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

This Saturday's harvest of lettuces from the Free Farm went to Welcome's 2nd and 4th Saturday community dinner. Over 150 meals were served with a side of super fresh, super local, greens.

The greens started off in covered beds here. (Thanks to Carling for this great photo taken at the Saturday workday!)

Then they were harvested and packed up.

And finally found their way onto plates to feed Welcome guests!

Fence Gardens - 3 Types - DIY

2010-04-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

Today at the Free Farm, we completed 3 projects that will grow on the fence. Our goal is to get some plants growing on the fence to make the space look prettier (both inside and out) and to create a noise barrier from all the street noise.

Here are three easy do-it-yourself projects that would be easy for you to complete on your own.

Our first project is the easiest. Take a plant that grows quickly like a vine, and likes to climb and train it to climb a fence. How do you train a plant? I used twine. It's as easy as gently tying it to the fence guiding it in the direction you want it to grow.

The photo to the left is of a Marsh Mallow (yup that's it's real name) that was growing wild near the fence at the Farm. So, I trained it to climb the fence and labeled the plant so that it could be read on both sides of the fence.

The second project, is also very simple. In fact all I did was fill a metal container with soil (potting soil + horse manure), plant a passion fruit and train the vine to attach to the fence. The passion fruit also has some support from some bamboo shoots to help it get to the fence and grow tall.

As you can see from the photo above, we needed the container because this section of the garden has concrete on it. If your fence is next to soil, you can plant right into the ground.

The third project is a little more complicated, but only took an hour from start to finish. I made a small pocket out of potato sacks and chicken wires. Then I filled it with dirt and planted a nasturtium and trained it to the fence.

Click here if you would like the complete instructions on how to make the vertical garden pocket on a fence.

April 17th Free Farm Blessing Ceremony!

2010-04-07T14:28:00.001-07:00

Hi Everyone! Like the board says, "4/17 - Blessing Ceremony"

I want to dedicate a special blog post today to invite you to the Free Farm on Saturday April 17th, at 10am for a special interfaith blessing and dedication. Presiding will be Pastor Dan from St. Paulus. Commissioning the area will be the Episcopal Bishop of California, Marc Andrus. Pastor Megan from Welcome, Griff from Diocal and the Free Farm, Margaret from Holy Innocents Episcopal Church, and regular volunteers will all be there offering blessings on the farm as well. We really hope to have the Farm's full spectrum of faith traditions, and non-traditions represented as possible.

Please join us. This promises to be a very special event for the farm and community.

Regular workday will take place. Either coming along for the event or not is perfectly alright!

Upcoming Excitement!

2010-04-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

Some new and exciting events are on the calendar for the near future! Wednesday April 14th at 9am, at the Free Farm there will be a free yoga lesson led by Tamara Loewenstein, Urban Share's arts curator! Please bring a mat. We will begin promptly at 9!

And as always, you can come by the farm Wednesday and Saturday from 10am - 2pm to enjoy working in the dirt, a free vegan meal, and friends!

Share and Share Alike

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Urban Share and its partner organizations have the need for the following things:

100 foot lengths of garden hose
Lumber for an outhouse, raised beds, a green house, a tool shed, potting tables, and more!
Wheelbarrows
Volunteer to make lunch one Wednesday or Saturday at the Free Farm.
Time to work in the garden
Access to a truck or hauling vehicle
Leading a group in a wellness activity (Do you know about yoga? meditation? medicinal herbs? stretching? acupuncture?)
Digging forks, pitchforks, and hand trowels

Welcome believes in a philosophy that until we have made room by giving all we have, we will not have room to receive. If you like the work that we do with those living in poverty, and working to create access to healthy food for all, you can have a stake in that work by contributing what you have available. We will accept it with grateful hearts!

First Free Farm Harvest!

2010-04-05T19:01:00.001-07:00

This past Saturday at the Free Farm saw some seriously healthy looking lettuces ready for eating!

Check out the pictures of Megan and I ready to snip greens from the lettuce lawn that can be harvest three times. Our strawberries are plumping up and the lettuce heads are now big enough to eat. Everyone's hard work is finally turning into something tasty!

West Oakland Mural Completed

2010-03-30T20:46:00.001-07:00

Tamara Loewenstein (pictured above on the right), Urban Share's Art's Coordinator, commissioned a mural featuring agricultural heroes at the Bethlehem Lutheran garden. Designed and completed by Bianca Muller (pictured above on the left), and sponsored by Kultklecks, the mural only took one week to complete.

Here are some photos that show you how we completed the mural. Click on any of the photos to see a larger version.

Here's the final project. Below you will see Caesar Chavez, George Washington Carver and Michelle Obama.

Living Generously.

2010-03-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

I believe that everyone has a meaningful contribution to make. This has become abundantly clear in the gardens where all kinds of people help in purposeful ways. Right now, our projects are seeking donations. Can you donate one of these items or pick an item to pledge money towards?

Right now we have need for

100 foot lengths of garden hose
Lumber for an outhouse, raised beds, a green house, a tool shed, potting tables, and more!
Wheelbarrows
Volunteer to make lunch one Wednesday or Saturday at the Free Farm.
Time to work in the garden
Access to a truck or hauling vehicle
Leading a group in a wellness activity
Digging forks, pitchforks, and hand trowels

Upcoming Urban Share Workdays

2010-03-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

Mark your calendars! There's gardening to be done.

This Wednesday, the 31st, on Cesar Chavez's birthday, the Free Farm is happy to welcome 3rd grade students from Children's Day School! This space continues to attract volunteers of all kinds. We mean it when we say, "All are welcome!" Come out Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10am - 2pm for a day of work in the garden and lunch.

On the 18th of April we'll be building raised beds at St. Mark's Lutheran Church from 1-4 pm. We expect to have seedlings ready to plant in the beds that same day.

We continue to have workdays in West Oakland at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. Check back to see when the next day you can get your hands dirty there will be.

We hope to see you out soon!

Free Farm Continues Growing!

2010-03-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

This week at the workday our vegetables got some protection from the elements with Reemay row covers. Check out the photos to see the work done on the row covers and how spectacularly the food is shaping up.

Welcome Fudraiser - Harvest Lunch: May 22nd: 12-2pm

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Save the date! Tickets will be $100 ($25 for garden volunteers and students).

Kris - Neigbor Loves Working in the Garden

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Griff recaps our garden work day

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Free Farm Work Day - 3/24/2010

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At today's work day we were able to get a lot of great work done, because we had so many wonderful volunteers. You can see most of them here in this photo.
We planted lots of different types of plants and spaces today.
We planted tomatoes in hot frames (water cooler bottles with the bottoms cut off).
We planted several types of mint in our labyrinth.
We planted beans along our stairs. As they grow taller, they will climb the stings attached to the poles we set up.We did our second planting of our lettuce lawn. This is planted by spreading lettuce seeds closely together covering it with a thin layer of dirt and watering. When it grows we will trim the lawn and it will continue to grow (like grass). We planted squash in our raised beds.
Check out our how our hillside garden is growing:
We still have more plants to plant, and we hope you'll help plant them on our next garden work day Saturday from 10am-2pm (with a vegan lunch served at noon). A neighbor came with a truckload of plants for our garden. A retired gardener, this neighbor liberated these plants from a building he was managing that was about to be destroyed. He's been taking care of them for the last 10 years.

Griff talks about today's work day at the Free Farm

2010-03-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

In the News

2010-03-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

Free Farm San Francisco - Tonic

Volunteers turn an overgrown lot in San Francisco into a farm that will provide free food.

San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the country, which makes the idea for the Free Farm all the more remarkable. The 1/3-acre lot located at the corner of Gough and Eddy streets is planning to provide free food to whomever wants it, with much thanks to a man who goes by the name Tree.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, Tree, a resident of the city's Mission District, opened what he called the Free Farm Stand in his neighborhood back in 2008, thanks to donations for the supplies he needed and a lot of hard work from various volunteers. Even though Tree said, "I've always got more people in line than food," he's managed to grow and give away more than 6,000 pounds of food.

Tree oversees the volunteers at the plot of land located at Gough and Eddy, land that used to be "an overgrown space for the homeless, junkies and partying gang members." The Rev. Megan Rohrer, executive director of The Welcome Ministry, a San Francisco nonprofit aiming to end poverty, asked the land's owner, the Lutheran Church, if Welcome could grown food on the lot, and the church agreed, unofficially giving them three to five years. Following a three-month cleanup, seedlings are now being planted and while it could be months until workers start to give out food, it's going to happen.

Not only will it help those in need, but as Tree explained in the article, it also helps the community at large. "Doing things for free encourages people to share. It encourages people to be community, to be family. It provides people the chance to be generous with each other." Let's hope the generosity continues to spread.

See the original: Free Farm San Francisco

Join Us for Upcoming Workdays!

2010-03-22T22:57:00.000-07:00

Every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am - 2pm come volunteer at the Free Farm. This Wednesday help us welcome visiting Alternative Spring Breakers from Dartmouth College! Come be a part of the excitement of food growing in San Francisco reported on recently by the Chronicle! You bring the elbow grease, we'll bring the vegan lunch! Hope to see you soon.

Here's a group of Alternative Spring Break students that came to help out at the farm. You and/or your organization are certainly welcome, too!

Current Needs

2010-03-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

Welcome has a hand in lots of gardens in different stages. At the Free Farm we need bike rims to cover our crop beds. We can also really use folks coming by to take pictures of the great work being done and volunteers to bring in vegan lunches for around 20 people. Tree has also listed some needs for the Free Farm at the end of his new blog post. Check it out!

At St. Mark's we have a need for 8 foot lengths of 1x6 or 2x6 redwood lumber. We also need 8 foot 2x4's for a potting table, benches for garden lounging, and raised beds!

As always you can check out our in-kind donation section of the Urban Share blog and the What We Need section of the Free Farm Stand blog.

Don't forget you can always donate your time, too!

Alternative Spring Breakers from Dartmouth at Bethlehem Lutheran

2010-03-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, March 23, a group of 12 students from Dartmouth College volunteered their time to the inaugural workday at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in West Oakland as part of their Faith in Action Alternative Spring Break program.

Above, students clear the way for the new soil in which seedlings will be planted during the next workday.

Urban Farming brought in two big truckloads of soil. President of the church Jennifer Teer oversees the unloading.

The Dartmouth volunteers worked tirelessly shoveling and raking out over 30 cubic yards of soil and helped to finish the new mural.

By the end of the day the space was ready for planting food!

In the News - SF Chronicle

2010-03-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

From: Free Farm Plants Seeds of Community, Generosity, San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 2010

Free Farm plants seeds of community, generosity

March 22, 2010|By Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer

The folks planting a farm on the corner of Gough and Eddy streets in San Francisco hold no illusion that they'll cure urban blight with a head of lettuce.

They make no claim that a fava bean sown today will reduce the prison population tomorrow.

"I'm a simple person," said a man who goes by the name Tree, a Mission District resident who oversees volunteers as they plunge seedlings into mulch. "We're going to grow food here, and then we're going to give it away to people who need it."

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The 1/3-acre lot, known unofficially as the Free Farm at the Corner of Gough and Eddy Streets, will soon provide free food to anyone who wants it. It's being built and cultivated by a group of people who decided the unused parcel, on a particularly busy Western Addition intersection, was a great place for a peach tree to grow.

And a mulberry tree. And potatoes.

"Doing things for free encourages people to share," Tree said. "It encourages people to be community, to be family. It provides people the chance to be generous with each other."

Tree first put his proverbial money where his mouth is in 2008, when he opened the original Free Farm Stand in his Mission neighborhood at 23rd and Treat streets. Relying on donations for supplies and elbow-grease from volunteers, by his count, he's since grown and given away more than 6,000 pounds of food on Sunday mornings.

"I've always got more people in line than food," he said.

Going home with a plant

Tree also sends visitors away with potted plants and small fruit trees. "I don't know if they go home and plant them, take care of them, or throw them away," Tree said. "I just know that I gave them a plant."

Tree has a salt-and-pepper beard (mostly salt), a diminutive frame, but the thick and soiled hands of a lifetime gardener. He declined to share his birth name because "this story is not about me."

The Rev. Megan Rohrer, executive director of Welcome, a San Francisco nonprofit that works to end poverty, helped start the Gough and Eddy project after she asked the landowner, the Lutheran Church, if the organization could grow food on the church's unused lot. Through Welcome, Rohrer has persuaded about six Bay Area churches to convert vacant land into urban gardens and farms in the past couple years.

The Western Addition lot was once the home of St. Paulus, an ornately designed church with Gothic arches and a towering spier that was destroyed by fire in 1995.

For more than a decade, it was an overgrown space for the homeless, junkies and partying gang members. When Rohrer lead the three-month cleanup effort, it took weeks before she could walk across the soil without hearing the sound of crunching glass.

Value of free food

Rohrer said the church has agreed to let the food farmers use the plot for three to five years, but nothing is in writing.

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"We're secretly hoping the farm will be so exciting they'll let us keep it," Rohrer said. "But I know the realities of the economy, and how much the land must be worth."

The concept of worth, and market value, is something the workers at the Free Farm like to challenge.

To Pancho Ramos-Stierle, a volunteer working the land last week, the worth of a farm that generates free food for a community can exceed the worth of a high-rise condo. Ramos-Stierle met Tree at the Mission Free Farm a few years ago and was so inspired by his generosity he began working at the Karma Kitchen, a cafe in Berkeley that opened in 2007 and operates on a "give what you can" billing system.

Trying to feed everyone

"If the community appreciates it," Ramos-Stierle said of the farm, "it will support our work. No strings attached. ... Why can't there be a re-emergence of a culture of generosity?"

It will be weeks, maybe months, before workers begin handing out roughage and beans, Tree said. It will be at least a year before the fruit arrives.

Yet each passing day another volunteer arrives at the gates and asks to help, and each week seems to lure another interested neighbor.

"We're trying to live with a certain intention," Tree said. "Our intention is to feed everyone. In terms of whether we can accomplish this in this city, I don't know."

Tamara talks about the mural at Bethlehem Lutheran

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Dartmouth Students on Spring Break work at the Bethlehem Lutheran Garden

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Second mural to go up at our West Oakland garden site

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This Saturday marks a special day for our West Oakland site at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. Not only is it the gardens kick off work day, in which the wonderful folks from Urban Farming are coming out to help us get the garden going, but we will be starting a mural lead by visiting German artist and muralist Bianca Müller.

The space at Bethlehem is as inviting as can be, with a congregation of

wonderful and welcoming members, and a sweet little plot of land

waiting to grow nourishing food and beautiful flowers for all the

communityto enjoy. On Saturday, we will gather with the members

of the congregations and community and friends and volunteers of

Urban Share to work on the mural that Bianca has been hard at work

creating sketches for. The mural depicts images of key influential civil rights rights

leaders in the agricultural movement: Cesar Chavez, George Washington Carver and

current First Lady Michelle Obama. Stay tuned for photos of the mural to come - we hope

to see you at one of our gardens soon!

Alia talks about their spring break work day

2010-03-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

University of Wyoming Students Work at the Free Farm

2010-03-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

Making the best use of their Spring Break, these University of Wyoming students, joined us for a special work day at the Free Farm

The students helped us finish up several of the tasks on our "to do" list, including:

Adding another layer of multch to the spaces where the pigeons and crows pulled up the cardboard looking for bugs and other critters.

Creating more walkways between our raised beds, by covering them with wet cardboard with mulch.

Double digging one of our last raised beds.

Cleaning up the rubble (from bricks that were found in the beds that we dug)

Watering the plants throughout the day, because it has been so warm outside lately and our plants have been getting burned.

They also helped organized the shed,
and completed our vertical garden frame box.
Lauren and Heidi came by the site and finished this water station that we be used for our drip tape and irrigation system. Special thanks to those who donated supplies and to the herchurch (Ebenezer Lutheran) for providing the funds we needed to purchase the additional pieces that make the water station fully functioning.

Extra Work Days this Week

2010-03-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

In addition to our regular work days at the Free Farm (Eddy and Gough in San Francisco):
each Wednesday and Saturday from 10am-2pm (vegan lunch served - canceled in heavy rain)

We will also have an additional work day on Friday March 19th at the Free Farm from 10am-2pm. Joining us will be spring break students from the University of Wyoming, but you are welcome to join us too.

Saturday March 20th, at Bethlehem Lutheran in Oakland (950 12th St - a few blocks from the 12th street BART station), we will be having our first work day. The kind folk from Urban Farming will be joining us for the work day. As a result of corporate sponsorship, which provides tools, soil and seedlings for our project, we will be able to get more done in one day then at our typical garden work days. We will be putting down soil, planting and starting to paint a mural! This is a particularly kid friendly work day, so bring some garden gloves, closed toed shoes. You can work, keep us company or even just bring us something for us to share at lunch. We hope to see you there!

West Oakland Garden Workday

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(see what the site looked like before our work day)

Today in Oakland, at 950 12th St., we made our final preparations before our big work day on Saturday March 20th (10-2pm - lunch served). This community garden is located at Bethlehem Lutheran. We are partnering with the good folk at Urban Farming for the event, which be sponsored by Kraft.

We started gathering our tools and made friends with the many neighbors who stopped by to ask questions about the new garden space. One young friend (a third grader) has helped us at the garden two Mondays in a row. Since our garden space is sandwiched between two schools, we expect our garden to be a great resource for local kids. In addition to the schools, Girls from the local Girls Inc will be utilizing the space to learn more about farming and the environment.

Today in pictures-
We liberated a gate that was buried in ivy and nailed shut, replaced rusty hinges and added a lock;

(this is what the gate looked like after three hours of pruning)prepped the walls for the murals that we will begin painting on Saturday;

painted the shed;
removed some old beds who wood was rotting;

Saturday March 13th Workday

2010-03-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

Today we continued our double digging, did some planting, painting and gathered lots of plants from Tree's personal nursery that we will use on the farm.

Here are some of the photo highlights of our work:

St. Mark's Garden progressing.

2010-03-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

After our second work day at the St. Mark's garden (see what we did on our first work day), we got the space completely cleared and ready for our next steps, which include building some raised beds. The drawing below shows how we hope the garden will look once it's completed.
This garden will be maintained by the members of St. Mark's and the seniors living in Martin Luther Towers (on the St. Mark's campus). One of the most important things that we will be doing at this site in the next couple of weeks will be to put down a walking path that is accessible to those in wheelchairs and using walkers who would like to work in our garden.

It looks like we will be recycling some old playground flooring that we are removing from Bethlehem Lutheran in West Oakland (where we are also working on a garden) to use for this path. We will be asking the seniors and members of St. Mark's to check out some samples of this flooring to make sure it meets their needs.

Free Farm Workday - 7 Beds Completed!

2010-03-10T19:14:00.000-08:00

Here you can see our Wednesday volunteers hard at work. In the bottom left corner of the photo above you'll find Tree planting some garlic in the terraced beds, some volunteers double digging , a raised bed being planted and some horse manure being spread where we will be double digging on Saturday.
To date we have completed 7 raised beds with our double digging and have only two more to go!
Tree, one of our expert gardeners, found a hammock by the side of the road that we are setting up at the garden. It will be a great space for people to rest and enjoy our garden.
One of the on going projects that volunteers are working on at the garden are steps made from bricks on our terraced hill that will provide a place for gardeners to sit and rest and to tend to the terraced plants a bit easier. The bricks for the steps come from the rubble of what used to be St. Paulus Lutheran before it burned down in the early 1990's.

Hope to see you at our next garden workday (at the corner of Gough and Eddy in San Francisco) on Saturday from 10-2pm. Vegan lunch served at noon.

Some Items We Need.

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As the gardens Urban Share works on develop we find new items we could use to help the projects along.

Right now we could use :

8 foot lengths of 2x6 or 1x6 lumber
2x4's of fir or pine
Plywood
Lots of galvanized decking screws
Large amounts of compost or manure
Use of large truck or dump truck
An anchor person for a garden site

If you can help out with an in-kind donation please contact me at case.garver@gmail.com.

Your generous donations help turn places like this...

Into a place like this!

Gardening Volunteer Opportunities

2010-03-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

Hi there! If you've got a desire to learn about gardening and food growing by getting your hands dirty, here are some places you can go!

Every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am until 2pm the Free Farm at Eddy and Gough Streets is open for folks to come work. There are all kinds of jobs to be done. This coming week we plan to do some shoveling to double dig our beds, planting more food, building our trellis for scarlet runner beans, raking and smoothing double dug beds, organizing tools in the shed, taking pictures, watering plants, running the wheelbarrow, or making a vegan lunch for yourself and the other volunteers! Sound like something you'd like to do? Either stop by in some clothes you don't mind getting a little dirty, or send me an email at thefreefarm.sf@gmail.com

Tree, a major coordinator of the Free Farm also has opportunities at different gardens listed on his site.

Happy Growing!

Trees for Arbor Day, A Heap of Horse Manure and More Food Planted!

2010-03-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

Major thanks to the folks at Redwood Ranch in Oakland for giving the Free Farm over 25,000 pounds of horse manure. Many thanks to our friend who drove the truck to deliver to us as well! With enough manure to last us for awhile our Saturday workday crew dug right in to prepare and plant more beds. Right now the Free Farm has 9 farm-style beds totaling over 1,000 sq. ft. We have 4 planted and another ready to go.

In the above photo you'll notice the beds are covered with a thin fabric. This stuff protects against, birds, bugs, and wind, as well as helping the plants grow quicker.

This Saturday the Free Farm observed Arbor Day by planting more food growing trees. Below a Lamb Haas Avocado tree is being planted.

We also planted Pakistani Mulberry tree! The Free Farm now has the avocado and mulberry trees I mentioned , and a weeping santa rosa plum, and a desert dawn nectarine.

What a great way to celebrate Arbor Day!

Workday - I am a rock!

2010-03-03T17:05:00.000-08:00

Today at the free farm we did a little planting. Below you will see pictures of the seedlings we planted in the double dug beds, in our labyrinth and on our hill.
We also worked to double dig another bed since we have lots of seedlings that need to get into the ground as soon as possible before they go bad. But, you'll notice from the photo below, that in the middle of our double digging we discovered a huge boulder in the middle of our bed. It took a little work, but we were eventually able to get the boulder out and complete our raised bed so that it would be ready for planting on Saturday. After double digging, we added horse manure and compost to the top and worked it into the soil.

Below is pictures of our completed raised and the seedlings that are itching to be planted.

In addition to growing food for the hungry, the Free Farm also serves as an educational spaces that teaches people about the different ways it is possible to garden and grow food in Urban settings. The photo below shows four different types of gardening: 1) the double dug raised beds; 2) a terraced hillside; 3) planting flowers, sunflowers and herbs directly on the hillside in mulch; and 4) our labyrinth raised beds.
Come see the garden for yourself at our next workday on Saturday from 10-2. Vegan lunch is served at noon. Closed during heavy rain. Hope you'll join us!

You Should Come to Our Workdays!

2010-03-01T21:12:00.000-08:00

Hope you can join us!

Here are the opportunities to volunteer at our gardens in San Francisco this week:

Free Farm (at the corner of Eddy and Gough):
Wednesdays and Saturdays - 10am to 2pm (vegan lunch served at noon)
Closed during heavy rain.

St. Mark's Garden (1111 O'farrell at the back of the red brick church - small fenced lot):
This Sunday from 1-4pm - Closed during heavy rain.

You should come to our workdays!

2010-03-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

Looking for Donations of Lumber!

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We need lumber! No mincing words here.

(Image Courtesy of Manfred Mielke, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org)

Below is our fair-weather temporary tool shed. We'd like to collect lumber to build a new weatherproof shed. We've also got big plans to build a greenhouse to propagate our own plants, and a composting toilet for workdays.

As always, if you have a lead on lumber, are able to donate in-kind, or can offer a financial donation to be put towards lumber contact me at case.garver@gmail.com.

Thanks a million!

A Place for Seedlings and Sunnyside Organic Nursery Donation

2010-03-01T18:40:00.000-08:00

This Saturday workday we planted lots of lettuce seedlings donated by Sunnyside Organic Nursery in exchange for a few hours of volunteer work.

If you're interested in checking out their amazing space by way of volunteering you can drop by every last Friday of the month! We've been protecting our starts in the recently built makeshift lath house.

This structure protects our little babies from the wind until it's time to plant!

Our third full bed of food is now planted thanks to Sunnyside, our lath house, and all of us at The Free Farm.

Garden work begins at St. Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco!

2010-02-28T16:44:00.000-08:00

Today we had our first garden work day at St. Mark's Lutheran (just a few blocks up from the Free Farm. Our work today was mostly weeding to clear the space so that we would be able to begin our gardening next week.

One stubborn thing we needed to take care of was the removal of a Juniper tree. We removed it by first cutting the limbs off.
Then we dug down to the roots and used a pick to try to cut the roots that we couldn't dig around. Normally we would try to pull the roots out, but the closeness to the fence made it hard to pull them out completely.
Here is what the space looked like after we cleared out the weeds.
This garden will not only be for the members of St. Mark's, but will also be a place for the seniors living in Martin Luther Towers to come and do some gardening. Therefore, when completed our garden will be accessible for wheelchair and walker access. And as we always do, we'll include all the info on how you can replicate our garden project where you live!

If you'd like to come out and help us at the St. Mark' garden we'll be working again next Sunday (March 7th from 1-4 pm. Hope to see you then.

Hooray for awesome volunteers!

2010-02-22T18:30:00.000-08:00

We've had the most amazing turn out of dedicated volunteers every workday so far! A handful of folks from the SF gardening community have come out to lend their experienced hands to the project, teaching gardening skills and helping with the design and planning of the space.

What's been especially inspiring is the amount of really local neighbors that have seen the progress in the space and stopped by to talk about the farm and lend a hand to make something positive in their community. There is a natural collaboration that happens at our workdays and we are so grateful to be accepted into the neighborhood, and all the gracious help and support we are receiving from people who come and share their stories about the site, and the neighborhood, and their lives and how we all overlap.

A million thanks to everyone who has come out so far to get their hands dirty and make the Free Farm happen! You are the best!

Please join our future workdays, every Wednesday and Saturday from 10-2 (unless there is heavy rain), there are all sorts of tasks for all levels of skill and physical ability (kids are most definitely welcome!). You are also welcome to stop by just to say hi, check out our progress and enjoy a little respite from the city streets. Hope to see you there!

(cross-posted to thefreefarm.org)

Composting Toilet at the Free Farm!

2010-02-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

We've gotten the go ahead to build a composting toilet from St. Paulus Lutheran, who generously donate their land to the Free Farm. We're very excited to have the help of Laura Allen of Greywater Action, who will be hosting a workshop on site to teach folks about composting toilets while we collaboratively build one together for the farm. We are currently in the planning stages and gathering materials to build the structure that will house the toilet, and are looking for lumber and plywood to get us started, so please drop us a line at thefreefarm.sf@gmail.com if you've got supplies you'd like to donate to this project. The rest of the set up is pretty simple and will be made from other recycled materials. Stay tuned for news and the upcoming workshop date!

(cross-posted to thefreefarm.org)

Rows and rows of food planted at weekly Free Farm workday!

2010-02-22T16:42:00.000-08:00

After lots of double digging and getting beds ready our group planted rows of greens in the beds. Check out some pictures of how things are shaping up!

We've got lots of broccoli planted.

This bed is filling up with chard. It feels good to put food right into the earth where we can keep an eye on it until its ready for the dinner plate.

The beds are in varying stages of development here. On the right is a bed with a layer of compost, ready to be double dug. In the middle is a bed planted with broccoli that Tree brought, and on the left is a bed in the process of being planted!

Come out and help plant with us this coming Wednesday or Saturday from 10am - 2pm. I would love to see you there!

Lenten Gardening

2010-02-17T22:35:00.000-08:00

Ash Wednesday Garden Work Day - Berkeley

2010-02-17T21:55:00.000-08:00

Today at Shepherd of the Hills (SOH) Lutheran in Berkeley, we had our first garden workday. SOH will be gardening throughout Lent and created a Sunday School curriculum about gardening.

Here's what we did today. First, we went to a horse stable in Oakland to get some free manure.
Then we dug up the soil that was practically clay and mixed it with manure and compost.

We built the terrace on a sloped hill. These beds will be used to grow a biblical garden. At the end of Lent, SOH will have grown their own bitter herbs to use in their sader service.

This flat section will be a place that we plant some fruit trees. SOH is hoping for a fig tree. If anyone wants to donate one, let us know. Email pete@welcomeministry.org

Ash Wednesday Gardening Work Days

2010-02-16T21:07:00.000-08:00

Ready to remember that you are dust? Join us as we play in the dirt!

You can join us every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am-2pm at the Free Farm, located at Eddy and Gough in San Francisco.

A special Ash Wednesday workday will be held at our newest community gardening site: Shepard in the Hills in Berkeley. We'll be planting some seeds, learning to make seedling pots from newspaper, clearing some old beds and terracing a space that will become a biblical garden over Lent.

We hope you can join us!

Fruit Trees, Compost, and a Labyrinth!

2010-02-15T15:50:00.000-08:00

Maybe it only looks like trash bags covering heaps of who-knows-what and a black bin to you, but it's so much more! This is the beginning of the Free Farm's composting system. There is a place for our food scraps from lunch, the invasive plants found at the site, and thick, woody materials, too. Composting space on a farm. Gotta have it! Below is a picture of our composting committee. Thanks so much, you three!

The picture below shows Tree sharing his knowledge of fruit trees. He taught us how to prune the tree so it will stay low. He also cleared up a problem lots of folks run into during tree planting. Rather than digging a hole and surrounding the tree with all nutrient rich material, the native soil should be mixed with the organic matter.

Also, Pastor Megan has been making serious headway with the meditation labyrinth. Make sure to check out the link to see how fabulously it's coming along!

Ready to Irrigate Means We Need Drip Tape!

2010-02-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!

In the last post I told you that we have beds ready to plant food in. How exciting! All told our beds will provide us with over 1,000 square feet of planting space. As you may well imagine that much space is difficult to water with just a hose and spray nozzle. This means we need a drip irrigation system using drip tape to properly water our crops.

(Hand watering is ok for seed trays)

(Hand watering is not ok for 7 more of these beds!)

This link has a picture of what I mean by drip tape. It also has a short rundown on how drip irrigation works. It's a good way to irrigate for large scale food production, and soon when we move beyond the two beds we have ready right now, it will be critical to the livelihood of our crops.

As always you can check out our wish list and learn a little bit more about our intern Pete, the person to contact if you can help out!

DIY: Learn to double dig raised beds

2010-02-15T13:56:00.000-08:00

This Saturday workday our group got two beds ready for planting! Tree gave us a tutorial on how to prepare them by double digging.

Step 1.) Your beds should have a 4-6" layer of compost on top to start with.

Step 2.) See Tree there in the photo below with the shovel in as deep as the shovel's head? That's as far down as you want to dig. You also only need a width of one shovel's head.

Step 3.) The soil from the first trench should be placed in a wheel barrow. That soil goes to the far end of the bed where it will be used to fill in the last trench.

Step 4.) Stick a digging fork in the trench you just dug so the tongs are fully submerged. Wiggle the fork around to loosen up the soil. This wiggling aerates the soil allowing roots more space and increasing drainage.

Step 5.) Now that the soil in the first trench has been loosened up you can begin digging the second trench right beside the first; same depth, same width. The soil from the second trench (including the 4-6" of compost on top) gets put into the first trench. You're just moving dirt from hole #2 into hole #1. Easy as that.

Just keep following this pattern of digging out a trench, working the fork into the dug-out space and then digging another trench right beside it and putting the second trench's dirt into the first. Do this all the way down the line. Mixing nutrient rich compost in with your soil helps build the soil structure, making the beds a hospitable area for food growing.

After raking the beds even our beds look like this.

DIY: Build Your Own Labyrinth - Step 3

2010-02-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

See Step One

See Step Two

This step: Layout beds for planting
Because our design is long and thin, some of our garden beds won't be full garden mounds. In these thin rows, we have made one foot width beds from bricks left over from the St. Paulus foundation. The more of these beds we plant, the easier it will be to tell where the labyrinth walking paths are. Below are some photos of our layout and and how we planted them.

At the end of the thin rows, the planting area expands to three feet wide as you can see here. In the 3 foot sections, is where our mounds will be. Mound planting is great for wet spaces. Wet plants go on the bottom of the mound and drier plants go closer to the top. Here we are going to be planting flowers, pretty looking, pretty smelling plants and some produce and herbs.

Below you can see that we planted some peppermint and chamomile.

DIY: Build Your Own Garden Labyrinth - Step Two

2010-02-11T23:15:00.000-08:00

See step one

The next step in the labyrinth is to layout the labyrinth with rocks. Luckily, my feet are a men's size 12 so it was very easy for me to measure the size of the space and line it up to the grid on the labyrinth design.

I'll upload a picture of the design we used just in case you happen to have a lot the exact size as ours.
Here you can see how I marked the distance between each row to map out the space before making my long walking paths.

It took three days to layout.

Go to step 3

Lots of Compost Needed!

2010-02-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

Hello friends of Urban Share and the Free Farm!

This time of year in San Francisco is the right season for planting! In order to take advantage of that our farm needs lots and lots of compost to work into the soil. It's probably our number one need right now in order to get food growing to give to those who need it most. If you or anyone you know, be they from work, or from school, your family, your church, or some other organization, has access to a large truck we would Love to use it. As a non-profit we can write a letter so the expense of using the truck is tax-deductible.

The picture you're seeing above shows 4 of our 9 planting beds that total over 1,000 sq. ft. We need the beds covered in 4" of compost, which equals a lot of compost. The issue isn't where to find the compost, it's getting it to our site, which requires a large truck. Can you help us out?

If so, please email me: case.garver@gmail.com

Saturday Feb. 6th Recap

2010-02-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday workday from 10am - 2pm started with the arrival of roughly three pick-up trucks worth of compost from the city dump. Farming in San Francisco on a large scale requires lots and lots of nutrient rich material to amend the sand-like soil. We'll be using a double-digging method to get our beds ready for planting.

This Saturday also saw some special friends from Tofu Town. They generously provided us with prepared lunches of vegan gyros and backyard gleaned fruit juice. All-in-all around 20 volunteers were fed. It was so good, I can't say enough. Thank you Tofu Town!

In keeping with the community building component of community gardening/farming our group comes together during important parts of the workday. We gather for a group huddle to lay out our plans for the day before we start, we come together again for a lunch break, and then we close by touring the farm and pointing out what's been accomplished during the day. The Free Farm project is about more than just growing food, it also seeks to nurture community amongst its contributors.

I hope you will come be a part of this growing community during our Saturday 10am - 2pm workdays.

A Labyrinth, Finished Steps, and More Food in the Ground!

2010-02-08T08:26:00.001-08:00

This Saturday workday saw a lot of action and a lot of progress. One of the big visions for the garden space is a food growing labyrinth! Tasty walking contemplation! It's taken lots of wheelbarrows of compost and roughly one ton of donated cardboard.

The above pictures is what we had co

mpleted on Wednesday. By Saturday all of our cardboard was covered and ready to build a labyrinth on!

The Free Farm is in a lot sunken below ground level. Getting down to the planting area sometimes proved tricky. In order to make the site safe for volunteers we've created a slow ramp and now a new set of stairs!

You'll notice the steps are surrounded by terraced beds. We've added more than what we had last time to include more strawberries, irises, and artichoke. Yum!

Free Farm Progress

2010-02-06T23:23:00.000-08:00

DIY: Make your own garden labyrinth - Part 1

2010-02-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

Here is step one in how to make your own garden labyrinth. We're putting our garden in an abandoned lot where lots of wild weeds grow, so our first step is to put down a root barrier. Fitting with our theme of recycling and getting our supplies for free, we used cardboard for our root barrier.

Note: This DIY tip is the same for how to make pathways in your garden - we're just doing it on a much larger scale.

Step one: Put your cardboard on the ground, each piece overlapping the one before.
Step two: Water the cardboard.
Step three: cover the cardboard with wood chips. We got ours for free from the local dump. It's from all the Christmas trees they've picked up recently!

It's that easy. Cardboard, water and wood chips. Step one completed.

Go to step 2

Wednesday 2/3/2010 Workday

2010-02-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

Today we got a lot of work done at the garden. The day begin with a few loads of free wood chips being delivered to the site by from the dump. Ever wonder what happens to all those Christmas trees after people throw them out? Well, we're using them for walkways, because it makes a very cushy walking surface.
Tree, was able to get the water hooked up, so that we could use a hose at the site. Which is great news for our strawberries!
We finished our ramp, by covering it with wood chips and started making some stairs for folk to walk down to the farm or sit on and rest. We also worked on a root barrier and painted over some more graffiti.

Check out some photos of our great volunteers:

DIY: Cover Graffiti Quickly

2010-02-02T11:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I decided to cover some of the graffiti that had been collecting at the site. In three hours I was able to cover up a large portion of the graffiti. First I used a roller to cover the bricks with yellow paint. I left some of the previous graffiti in the cracks of the brick, since they provide some great character. The design is then made with spray paint. You could make the same thing with regular paint but it would take longer.

I wanted to put some items on the wall to fill the space so it wouldn't just get covered with graffiti again. It seems like when we've tried to put graffiti style lettering on the wall that it just gets painted over, so this time I tried putting up some whimsical drawings of the produce that we are currently planting and information about when we are open. This will not only cover the graffiti, but serve as a billboard to the neighborhood about when our community work days are.

The design I used is really simple and I imagine that it could be copied by others with very little artistic ability. The strawberries are just a red cone, with a green star on top. Then the green and the red are outlined by black and black dots are put on the red.

The potatoes are simply brown ovals outlined in black with green vines drawn on last.

The flowers are made by drawing a purple four leaf clover shape. puting a blue X in the middle of the flower. Then using light yellow to draw a small circle in the middle of the flower and to outline the outside of the flower. Then the outside of the flower is neatly outlined with black.

And poof, a fast mural that cheaply covers large spaces of graffiti.

Work With us at the Free Farm this Saturday

2010-02-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

The Free Farm is quickly moving from an abandoned, neglected lot, to a well-loved, full-scale farm. Come be a part of our growing community of farmers this Saturday from 10am - 2pm. We'll be getting our beds prepared with manure and compost, laying down wood chips to finish our loading ramp, continuing cleaning the lot, and watering our strawberry plants! To work at the farm you'll need to wear some work clothes, including closed-toed shoes, and be ready to sign our volunteer liability and photo release form. We'll provide the delicious vegan lunch! See you then!

What's needed at the Free Farm and how you can help

2010-02-01T12:56:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

This past workday saw some exciting progress at the Free Farm. We set up a valve and now have running water. Now our crops won't die!

This is a huge step for the farm, and the next step that comes from it is hooking up a manifold which allows us to run water multiple places. In order to water the whole farm we need to install a drip irrigation system which means we need a drip timer. Timers run about $60. We'll also need plenty of PVC piping to get the water to the plants.

We're also at the ridiculously exciting phase where we are preparing the beds for planting. This means we need to work lots of compost and manure into the sandy San Franciscan soil. Do you have a truck we can use to load up with compost?

We also have plenty of other items that can be donated, check out the last blog with our comprehensive list.

If you can help us feed hungry people with fresh, locally grown produce by donating any of these items please contact me at case.garver@gmail.com. I'll get you the specifics.

Plants in the Ground at Free Farm!

2010-02-01T08:19:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday marked the first planted bed of food at the Free Farm! We have three adorable terraced beds of strawberries on a slope overlooking the farm.

We started with some compost from the dump

then dug out the side

of the hill to create a plane, or terrace, mixing in the compost.

We used rocks from the original St. Paulus Lutheran church structure to shore up the bed

Planting seedlings in

the new beds

And this is what you

end up with. Strawberries in the ground!

Call for Submissions: Urban Share Garden Zine

2010-01-30T21:16:00.000-08:00

Urban Share is currently accepting submissions for the first issue of our garden zine; a small run quarterly publication including original artwork and contributions by local artists and gardeners, both amateurs and professionals welcome. Currently accepting original drawings, stories, seasonal recipes, urban gardening tips, garden manifestos, essays on food movements, permaculture, barter, community activism etc. All work will be reproduced in black and white.

If you are interested in submitting a proposal please send submissions by February 15, 2010 to:

Tamara Loewenstein

Curator + Community Arts Organizer

Urban Share Community Gardening Project

tamara.loewenstein@gmail.com

(415) 846-1402

View of the Free Farm - Progress 1/30/10

2010-01-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

Double dig beds at the Free Farm

2010-01-30T19:45:00.000-08:00

Video: We planted strawberry beds!

2010-01-30T19:23:00.001-08:00

Short video about composting

2010-01-30T19:21:00.000-08:00

Video about the Free Farm mural

2010-01-30T19:16:00.000-08:00

If you are interested in submitting a proposal for a mural for the Free Farm or one of Urban Share garden sites please email:

Tamara Loewenstein
Curator + Community Arts Organizer
Urban Share Community Gardening Project
tamara.loewenstein@gmail.com
(415) 846-1402

Save the Date: Bethlehem Ground breaking March 20th

2010-01-29T18:57:00.000-08:00

We're partnering with the good people at Urban Farming to create the community garden at Bethlehem Lutheran in West Oakland. On March 20th we are going to have a ground breaking event to start planting our produce. We'll provide more details as the date gets closer, but for now, we hope you'll put the date in your calendars. It's going to be an amazing event!

Join us on Satruday for our next work day!

2010-01-26T14:44:00.000-08:00

Look how beautiful our lot looks now that we cleared all the brush! The site is starting to look less like an abandoned lot and more like a park. We hope our next work day on Saturday will transform the site so it starts to look like a garden. Want to help?

Join us on Saturday when we will be staking out our garden beds, working manure into the soil. Come to Eddy and Gough from 10am - 2pm. Make sure you wear closed toed shoes and we'll provide a yummy vegan lunch for our workers! See you then.

Current list of needed supplies

2010-01-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

Here is our current list of needs:

- Glass windows for greenhouses (of all sizes)
- Lumber (pressure treated and natural, 2x4's, pallets and plywood)

- Succulent clippings
-Chicken Wire
-Cardboard
-Nails
-Staple Gun
-Miscellaneous carpentry tools

- Battery powered power tools

- Manure

- String stakes

-Wood chips

- Seeds and seedlings: plants including trees and berries

- Garden tools: hand trowels, pitch fork, u-bar (digging fork), shovels, rakes, hoes.

-Gloves

- Wheel barrow and accompanying wheels.
-Wooden wine boxes
-a truck (for hauling supplies)

Of course, we are always looking for volunteers as well. Get in touch with Pete at petefeltman@gmail.com.